Middle East and North Africa

David Rutley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Those are of course matters for the House anyway, but my point is that I do not regard the Government’s policy on the issue as having changed. I have said today that Colonel Gaddafi must go, and the Prime Minister said that in the debate on 21 March. I have said also that we will continue to take all necessary measures to protect civilians, although the nature of those measures may change from week to week, and that is what we said in the debate of 21 March that we would do, so we have not changed our approach.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

Given the Gaddafi regime’s constrained refining capability, what assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the merits of strengthening the restrictions on supplies of petrol and diesel to the regime’s forces?

[Mr Hague]

It is very important to enforce the existing sanctions on the regime. We are doing a lot of work to make sure that they are rigorously enforced by other countries, and that takes in my hon. Friend’s point. So we are looking at that at the moment.